Herbert (Bert) Thiess was the 10th child of Henry and Mary Thiess. He was one of 11 children, 10 boys and 1 girl. The Thiess family was a farming family who had a property at Drayton, a small town near Toowoomba. Henry Thiess was of German heritage, as were many of the immmigrants in that area. Bert was the one of the five younger brothers who started a small earthmoving business that then grew into a globally respected establishment that overcame hardship, broke boundaries and forged new ground.
Bert collected tractors for a large part of his life. By all accounts he loved tractors and collected 35, restoring and repairing them. He collected his favourite models that he had used over the years in the Thiess Bros business. He also kept and restored the original cropping and harvesting machines that his father had purchased to give his children a way to make an income. Bert was awarded a CBE in 1981 and an Order of Australia in 2004 for his contributions to civil engineering. He was fondly known as 'king of the tractors' in his younger years, a nod to his natural ability in understanding how to effectively drive and use the machines with little training.